~ Beyond bones & stones

6,000 Year Old Death Pit Indicates Some Neolithic People Weren’t So Egalitarian

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Circular burial pits like the one shown above were common during the Neolithic period in Central and Western Europe some 6,500 to 5,500 years ago. But rarely do graves from this time hint at so much brutality.

This one, a 6.5 foot (2 meter) deep circular pit excavated in Bergheim, France, includes several complete human skeletons strewn atop a pile of left arms and hand fragments that appear to have been hacked off their former owners by axes.

The archaeologists behind the discovery suspect that the two men, one woman and four children buried at the top of the pit were killed during some sort of violent raid. The origin of the severed limbs below remains unknown.